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Overclocking i5-3570k "just a little"

I've been thinking of overclocking my new i5-3570k (Z77 mobo and an extra CPU cooler). Now, this is something I have never done before but I've been told it's simple. However, whenever I try googling for a step-by-step guide, what I get is some kind of hardcore YOU CAN REACH 5.0GHZ guides which seem to go out of their way to get those final few hertzes out of it. What I'd like to do is to overclock just a a little, without much fuzz, maybe from the stock 3.4Ghz to 3.8 or something like that, so that the temperatures don't rise much and the fan doesn't need to spin 100% all the time. I'm aware that the difference isn't that much then, but I figured that this sort of thing would be good for a first-timer.

Does anyone have a good source for this kind of absolute beginner's not-so-ambitious guide?

Go into the BIOS
Up the CPU multiplier one or two notches.
Stress test it with Prime 95

Repeat untill you are either satisfied or see significant problems. Just be patient, and it will all be fine.

However, if you are not patient, or accidently screw something up in a major way, check your Motherboard's manual on how to do a CMOS reset. It will most likely not happen that your PC can not POST (and my current mobo actually does a cmos reset in case it won't automatically), but it's nice to have this one precaution in place.

So does this mean that, when doing only modest overclocking, one doesn't really need to dabble with the voltages and such? Just up the multiplier, test, up, test, up etc until it isn't stable OR you meet your target?

So does this mean that, when doing only modest overclocking, one doesn't really need to dabble with the voltages and such? Just up the multiplier, test, up, test, up etc until it isn't stable OR you meet your target?

Pretty much, yes. I have a Core i5-3450 running stable at 3.6-3.9 GHz with zero fiddling with voltages or anything else.

So does this mean that, when doing only modest overclocking, one doesn't really need to dabble with the voltages and such? Just up the multiplier, test, up, test, up etc until it isn't stable OR you meet your target?

CPU Voltage is best left on "Auto", or on the setting they currently are, for ease of use. Mobo's get it right most of the time.

However, dabbling with voltages is not all that hard. It does, however, require a lot more work and patience:
Start out with stock CPU multiplier and the current voltage. When the system becomes unstable, simply up the voltage one notch, like you would with the CPU multiplier, and see if it has any effect on stability. If it has, continue overclocking.

Do note, however, that upping the voltage has a much bigger effect on heat production then upping the multiplier has (Due to physics - Upping the volts raises heat exponentially), and your system draws more power if you go that way.

Alternatively, if you left CPU Voltage on "Auto" all the time, and you found your favorite clock settings, you can also lower the voltages (figure out which voltage that was with CPU-Z) untilll your system becomes unstable, and then up it one notch (Auto tends to overestimate the voltages).

If you don't have auto overclocking:
Without much knowledge it's easy to get lost when overclocking. While you won't fry your hardware - motherboards have fail safes in place if you do something crazy like change voltages to 2v for the cpu - you will end up spending hours and not making any progress. Since you are randomly changing values, a good suggestion that I took to heart in my early overclocking days is:
to keep a legal pad and pencil next to the PC recording every value you entered.
after rebooting, start testing with Prime95 and note the temperatures via Core Temp.
If the system fails ad restarts, mark the settings entered as failed (note down the temperature at the time of the crash, you can do this by enabling logging in Core Temp) and start over with new values.

This way you can get a "feel" for what works in your hardware configuration and what doesn't. From there, you can reach a satisfactory overclock or (when asking for help) better articulate how far you are from reaching your ideal overclock in tech forums like [H]ardforum or Xtreme systems.

Edit: I actually watched part of that actual video now, and it's actually quite amusing the way that actual idiot is actually setting things up. He actually puts actual intake fans at the top of the actual case.
He actually uses actual words like actually or actual a lot as well.

Edit: I actually watched part of that actual video now, and it's actually quite amusing the way that actual idiot is actually setting things up. He actually puts actual intake fans at the top of the actual case.
He actually uses actual words like actually or actual a lot as well.

In spite of the strange air flow setup and the guy's delivery, he managed to get a 4.3GHz overclock that booted into windows in 5 minutes. The auto overclocking in Asus (and I assume other high end manufacturers) isn't some cheap predefined profile, the software actually goes through a testing loop to get the most stable overclock.